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This is a project I started and gave up on in the late 1990s. I have a library copy of the commentary and monograph on Bezae Acts by JOSEP RIUS-CAMPS and JENNY READ-HEIMERDINGER. I am not following their conclusions about Bezae, just using it as a reference along with Ropes edition Bezae D 05 (Greek text).

1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen, and ordered to proclaim the gospel. 3 He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 4 And being found {with them} he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, {he said}, “<you> heard from my mouth; 5 for John baptized with water but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, whom you are about to receive at Pentecost, not many days from now.”

Textual notations <…> reflects the text of Codex Bezae as amended by modern editor. Bold Type: translation reflects a reading found in Codex Bezae. {…} translation has been left unchanged but it more closely represents Codex Bezae than the Alexandrian Text.

The Alexandrian Text is something like SBLGNT, W&H, NA27. The Bezae transcription for this passage reads:

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord will you at this time restore [to the kingdom of Israel]?”

JOSEP RIUS-CAMPS and JENNY READ-HEIMERDINGER interpret this as a question about filling the empty place among the twelve apostles left by Judas Iscariot. If they were going to judge the twelve tribes of a restored Israel then there needed to be twelve of them. Ropes on the other hand marks †εις† as a nonsense reading, scribal error. RIUS-CAMPS & READ-HEIMERDINGER give examples of this syntax from the LXX.

This is the only example which shows ἀποκατάστηθι without a direct object:

There is a potential discourse level significance indicated by the substitution και for δὲ after μὲν οὖν in verse 6. But I don't know what it means, much less how to represent it in English, especially when the base translation in english appears to ignore δὲ:

He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.

The speech introduction: και ειπεν προς αυτους in Bezae shows that Jesus' response wasn't an answer to the question asked. Codex Vaticanus, with no conjunction could also be understood in that manner so it is best to just ignore it.

I read Rius-Camps and Read-Heimerdinger treatment of this verse and then looked at Levinsohn's treatment of και and δὲ in narrative. I came away with the distinct impression that the word development as a description of the difference between και and δὲ isn't really going to fly in the face of evidence to the contrary. Levinsohn (2000, chapter 6) claims there are too many counter examples where και is used in narrative contexts where development is indicated. The result is a lack of confidence that any unambiguous discourse distinction can be specified for the alternation between και and δὲ.

And when he had said these things, as they were looking on he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

The rendering of ϋπεβαλεν as enveloped was suggested by reading both Barrett (Acts ICC) and B. M. Metzger (Textual Commentary 1975). The phrase απο οφθαλμων αυτων isn't found in the other "Western" witnesses. It is not reasonable to conclude from this that the "Western" text does not support the apostolic eyewitness of ascension. The very next verse has them staring into the sky and two men in shining garments telling them what they saw and what they will see at the second coming.

Ropes corrects ελαλησεν to ἐλάλησαν which I have tentatively rejected based partially on my understanding of how Rius-Camps and Read-Heimerdinger read this verse. Here is my current take on the translation.

Acts 3:24 ESVAnd all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days.

Acts 3:24 Bezae24 And all the prophets, from Samuel and those who came after him, they also proclaimed [what he said concerning] these days.

Acts 7:4 Bezae Then [Abraham] went out from the land of the Chaldeans {and} lived in Haran. [And he was there] after his father died [and he migrated to]** this land in which you are now living [and our fathers before us].

Acts 7:4 ESV Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living.

**Notes on the English text for Bezae

Codex Bezae recasts the story and makes Abraham the probable agent in the relocation. Abraham is most recent agent and the verb used in Bezae is one where the agent himself relocates. However, the pronoun “him” in “God removed him” ESV creates a problem. It cannot refer to Abraham's father given the verb used doesn't take an object.

The difference between μετωκησεν Bezae and μετῴκισεν NA27 is the vowel pair η-ι which are often common variants in Bezae. So it could just be an error. But combining it with the recent assertion of Abraham as the subject/agent Acts 7:4a τοτε αβρααμ εξελθων and the recasting of participles as finite verbs with inserted conjunctions the over all discourse is changed in manner that supports Abraham as the agent in μετωκησεν. The accusative pronoun αυτον after μετωκησεν is the fly in the ointment.

So the commentators reason backwards from this to 7:4b μετωκησεν αυτον εις την γην ταυτην and supply God as the subject-agent of μετωκησεν. I can see how this would make sense. Bezae makes the switch to Abraham as subject-agent explicit in 7:4a but switches back to God as the subject-agent without making it explicit.

Hope you won't mind if I venture some comments on the passges you mention. I should make clear at the outset that I'm only going by your posts.

Acts 1.6 εις must just be a mistake. The LXX passages you quote give no support to it. (Very dodgy in any case to compare Luke's Greek with LXX Greek.) ανακαταστηθι at Jer.29.6 is effectively passive (2nd aor.), lit. "be restored to your sheath", so this is irrelevant. Similarly αποκατασταθεις in Ezra. The rest, with transitive forms of the verb, all have a direct object. Without a direct object in Acts 1.6 the version with εις is simply unintelligible. The attempt to supply an understood object (a replacement 12th) is strained beyond breaking point, especially when its sense runs radically counter to the main tradition.

1.7 A common interchange, and not a significant difference. οι μεν ουν validates δε, as you indicate.

1.9 υπεβαλεν must just be a copying error for υπελαβεν. I've seen other instances of this inversion with -λαβ- / -βαλ-.

3.24 ο ελαλησεν lacks a construction, and must be wrong. The position of και precludes it from being object of κατηγγειλαν and in any case τας ημερας ταυτας has to be the object. It's untranslatable, except as the ungrammatical nonsense that it is: "… came after him what he said also proclaimed these days."

From what I've seen so far Rius-Camps and Read-Heimerdinger are intent on making sense of nonsense. A better policy would be to recognize it as nonsense.

7.4 Confusion of -ωκησεν and -ωκισεν is common (the difference in pronunciation had collapsed, and etacism is everywhere), and I don't think there can be any doubt that that's the case here. (Esp. easy following κατωκησεν.) That would be so even without auton (impossible with metwkhsen), which clinches it.What makes it a fairly interesting corruption is kakei hn and the kai before metwkhsen. It looks as if kakeihn was corrupted from kakeiqen and then the kai added to connect the two verbs. The unsignalled switch of subject to "God" may have assisted, the copyist assuming that Abraham was still the subject, just as he (rightly in this case) took Abraham to be the unsignalled subject in the previous sentence.The kai before κατωκησεν, on the other hand, I'd guess to be a mere copying error, by dittography, kaikat-. (Any chance it was cancelled?)

mwh wrote:The unsignalled switch of subject to "God" may have assisted, the copyist assuming that Abraham was still the subject, just as he (rightly in this case) took Abraham to be the unsignalled subject in the previous sentence.

Thanks for looking at this and taking the time to post. I think from a discourse perspective the switich from QEOS to Abraham and back to QEOS can be understood if we assume that QEOS is the global VIP and Bezae made Abraham explicit to remove possible confusion, clarifications like this are found throughout the Western text. Now why Bezae didn't make switch back to QEOS explicit is another question.

I agree that many of these variants follow predicable patterns of vowel exchanges. There is a temptation to translate a variant which makes sense in the context even when it could be explained by one of these predictable patterns. If it looks like a change that could be explained on semantic or discourse level then I will probably go ahead and translate it.

The correctors of Codex Bezae let the dative σοι stand. Which I find interesting. That would make it an indirect object of εκαθαρισεν. NO?

"What God has made clean [some semantic relation] you, do not treat as common."

The question is what semantic relation. Is the voice from heaven saying the changed status of the ritually impure food types is somehow related to Peter? It is being made pure for Peter or on Peter's behalf? This sounds a little too late 20th century to be a part of Acts.

Sure, the dative of advantage or the so-called ethical dative, which Smyth says are related.

Smyth, Greek Grammar, 1486. Dative of Feeling (Ethical Dative).—The personal pro nouns of the first and second person are often used to denote the interest of the speaker, or to secure the interest of the person spoken to, in an action or statement. ““μέμνησθέ μοι μὴ θορυβεῖν” pray remember not to make a disturbance” P. A. 27b, ““ἀμουσότεροι γενήσονται ὑ_μῖν οἱ νέοι” your young men will grow less cultivated” P. R. 546d, ““τοιοῦτο ὑ_μῖν ἐστι ἡ τυραννίς” such a thing, you know, is despotism” Hdt. 5.92 η, Ἀρταφέρνης ὑ_μῖν Ὑστάσπεός ἐστι παῖς Artaphernes, you know, is Hystaspes' son 5. 30. The dative of feeling may denote surprise: ““ὦ μῆτερ, ὡς καλός μοι ὁ πάππος” oh mother, how handsome grandpa is” X. C. 1.3.2. With the dative of feeling cp. “knock me here” Shakesp. T. of Sh. 1. 2. 8, “study me how to please the eye” L. L. L. i. 1. 80. τοὶ surely, often used to introduce general statements or maxims, is a petrified dative of feeling (= σοί).

a. This dative in the third person is very rare (αὐτῇ in P. R. 343a).

b. This construction reproduces the familiar style of conversation and may often be translated by I beg you, please, you see, let me tell you, etc. Sometimes the idea cannot be given in translation. This dative is a form of 1481.

I notice that my N.A. 27 does not even refer to the reading. The more difficult reading is to be preferred, except when it is not.

Markos wrote:Sure, the dative of advantage or the so-called ethical dative, which Smyth says are related.

Mark,

I have some sort of permanent disability (mental) when it comes to case semantics in the traditional framework. The metalanguage seems perfectly calculated to be completely incomprehensible to people who came to greek from a linguistics background. In other words, I just don't get it. My mind instantly fogs over when I hear the words "ethical dative". Most of Smyth's grammar is very helpful but case semantics always involves the a major shift in ones point of view. A shift I am incapable or perhaps just unwilling to make.

Just ran into this, sampled some treatment of the dative case which looks to me kinda like GGBB redux. But not to be unfair, I have only read a few pages.

Thanks.

Another Edit:

Perhaps we could just say that given the vision Peter just experienced the "unclean" animals (foods) were being made "clean" FOR Peter — a mid 20th cent. Swiss or German theologian would have a clever way of wording this — as preparation for his encounter with Cornelius and the expansion of the gospel to the gentile world. So it isn't just for Peter alone but in this context it is in some special way focused on Peter because Peter is going to be a difficult person to bring around on this matter.

I expect the manuscript's σοι is just a phonetic error for συ (quite common – no pun intended), but since it makes sense ("what God made clean for you"--just as you say in your edit) I guess it could be classified as an ancient variant, and you'll want to translate it.

10.17 could also be a mistake, committed when διηπορει was taken to be main verb (and hence the και added before ιδου to make a new sentence), but here the Bez. codex's text has to be taken seriously and could even be argued to be authentic (though I very much doubt it).

I sympathize with your coming from a linguistics background and encountering all these traditional grammatical labels for case usage. "Ethical" dative in particular is a category to which datives tend to be assigned by default when they can't be neatly slotted into any of the more definite categories. But I'm sure you could map everything on to a more linguistically based framework if you tried. Historical linguistics can help. The various functions of the ablative, for example, are divvied up in Greek between the dative and the genitive, so you have ablatival datives and genitives along with non-ablatival ones. So there are real semantic differentiations with firm boundaries, as well as fuzzier ones such as "ethical" dative and "dative of advantage or disadvantage." Other distinctions, e.g. between objective and subjective and possessive genitives, are no less semantically real and discourse analysis (which I gather is where you're coming from) shouldn't have much trouble dealing with them even if it reconfigures the metalinguistic labels.

mwh wrote:I expect the manuscript's σοι is just a phonetic error for συ (quite common – no pun intended), but since it makes sense ("what God made clean for you"--just as you say in your edit) I guess it could be classified as an ancient variant, and you'll want to translate it.

It looks like the text was partially erased but is still readable. I am wondering if it was written by the first hand or added later. The letter forms look at least superficially similar to those of the first hand. But I am no expert on such matters. It isn't listed as a corrector in the apparatus or in Swanson. So what is this writing which is readable but faint like it was scraped away? Is it a late addition to the manuscript?

EDIT H. Alford in his apparatus notes that the text of the first hand was obliterated and subsequently one of the correctors entered the text that is readable.

1 Now [it became known to the apostles and the brothers who were in Judea] that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2 [Then after sufficient time, Peter was ready to travel to Jerusalem. So he called the brothers and strengthened them with many words teaching them throughout the region. Then he came to them (in Jerusalem) and reported to them the grace of God. But the brothers from the circumcision] party criticized him, saying,

Illustrating the risks involved of relying in the apparatus in NA26-28 C. K. Barrett made a mistake in his note on Acts 11:6 (Acts 1-15. ICC vl. 1, p. 539), Barrett states that ερπετα is omitted in D* and goes on to explain why this happened. But only the article τα was omitted. The note in NA26-27 is correct but you have to count words right in the sequence. τα before ερπετα is word #9 in the NA26-27 sequence < τα τετραποδα της γης και τα θηρια και τα ερπετα και τα>. Words #1, #9 and #12 are missing in D*.

What strikes me here is the levelling of συναγαγοντες to a sigmatic aorist and the mangled ανηγγειλον form combining aorist stem with imperfect ending. The rest looks as if it means "all that God had done for them with their souls," a padding-out of the shorter text. Whether Aramaic comes into it, or the Psalms passage (I'd have thought not), I couldn't say.

In this context παρεδοθησαν μεγως ϋπο της εκκλησιας is a crux. Almost everyone simply corrects it to παρεδέχθησαν. Not Rius-Camps and Read-Heimerdinger, they read παρεδοθησαν in the negative sense of "delivered/handed over" but what are we are we to do with ϋπο της εκκλησιας? R-C & R-H suggest the impossible, that ϋπο της εκκλησιας means under the authority of the church and the whole clause means they were given over to the church's authority. I can't accept ϋπο as a marker of the persons or agency delivered to with παραδίδωμι. That is ungreek, no?

So I see two problems. What does παρεδοθησαν mean in this context? Assuming that ϋπο is a marker of agency with passive παραδίδωμι, how do we make sense out of the church handing over (or whatever) Paul and Barnabas and to whom? Perhaps the the general membership of the church handed them over to the leadership but that sounds to me like a desperate solution.

παρεδοθησαν just a mindless slip for παρεδεχθησαν, I'd say. At it stands, cannot mean anything other than "they were handed over by the church," which can hardly be what's intended.

I remarked earlier: "From what I've seen so far Rius-Camps and Read-Heimerdinger are intent on making sense of nonsense. A better policy would be to recognize it as nonsense."

This reinforces that impression. So I wouldn't pay any heed to them.

The only problem I see here is μεγως. Is it for μεγαλως?

απηγγειλαντες obviously corrupt for –αν τε. And presumably απ- corrupt for αν-, though απ- gives sense and in a less horrendously copied manuscript could be taken as a real variant. I can't imagine how you mean to translate such a hopelessly garbled text.

How much (if anything) is there in this MS that securely represents a different underlying text? This is a genuine question, asked out of ignorance.

mwh wrote:παρεδοθησαν just a mindless slip for παρεδεχθησαν, I'd say. At it stands, cannot mean anything other than "they were handed over by the church," which can hardly be what's intended.

That is exactly what I came up with after spending some time with Danker and LSJ to see if παραδίδωμι could be wrenched away from that reading.

I remarked earlier: "From what I've seen so far Rius-Camps and Read-Heimerdinger are intent on making sense of nonsense. A better policy would be to recognize it as nonsense."

This reinforces that impression. So I wouldn't pay any heed to them.

The only problem I see here is μεγως. Is it for μεγαλως?

απηγγειλαντες obviously corrupt for –αν τε. And presumably απ- corrupt for αν-, though απ- gives sense and in a less horrendously copied manuscript could be taken as a real variant. I can't imagine how you mean to translate such a hopelessly garbled text.

Well Fitzmyer[1] (Acts, Anchor Bible) didn't agree. He provides a running translation of just the Western variants, not the entire text. And he decides what form of the Western text to translate, not always Bezae. Fitzmyer is not an advocate of the Western text or codex Bezae. But he takes it seriously enough to read it.

How much (if anything) is there in this MS that securely represents a different underlying text? This is a genuine question, asked out of ignorance.

About all I could say without rereading a large pile of books on Bezae in Acts which i read in the late 1990s and don't have on hand ($300 monographs), the Western text is found in a two Uncial Codexs D, E, and some old Latin versions, some Patristic citations, Syriac versions, it isn't isolated to one manuscript. The Western text doesn't just smooth out difficulties like the Byzantine text. It actually alters the story line. The Alexandrian text apologists have always trivialized this aspect but if you read through it one variant at a time you see that it isn't just padding that is being added.

The argument I find appealing is that Acts circulated in different forms from the beginning. The original is a moot question. I don't find the consensus for the Alexandrian version at all impressive. There are places where Alexandrian version is just as unreadable as what we have been talking about in Bezae. In those places the translations quietly adopt Western or Byzantine readings for their versions.

[1] Joseph A. Fitzmyer (b.1920) was one the leading NT scholars in the western world, certainly in the English speaking world.

mwh wrote:I can't imagine how you mean to translate such a hopelessly garbled text.

The Text of Codex Bezae is remarkably lucid 99% of the time. If you want a nightmare try translating Agamemnon. We "read" Agamemnon in this forum a while back. Only two of us survived to the end. Bezae by comparison is no problem at all.

Thanks Stirling (if I have that right). You are my authority on the Beza codex. I'm glad to know not all of it is as whacky as the bits you're presenting here. Does it have unique readings that have a claim to be considered as other than amplifications, rewrites, retellings, whathaveyou? And what is its status as a representative of the "Western" text? — Well, I know there are about as many answers to these two questions as there are NT scholars, so feel free just to ignore.

I wonder how you think it compares with the Oxyrhynchus Acts papyrus. Might be interesting to set them side by side?

Interesting you think the Byzantine text smoothes out difficulties. I would expect that to be right. Have you discussed this with Byzantine adherents like uberdwayne and markos? I really have no place on this forum myself. They're in agreement with you about the Alexandrian text. Myself I wonder how much justification there really is for lumping the textual instantiations from Egypt together under that label. Besides which, older doesn't mean better, of course, but at the same time it would be foolish to disdain such early evidence. What we're after is the most plausible account of the transmission, arrived at without presuppositions, and as yet I haven't seen any that fully satisfies. Not that I've read very much, but most of what I have read is already invested in the answer and mostly interested in combating opposing views.

The idea that "Acts circulated in different forms from the beginning" sounds likely enough, based on my knowledge of other text traditions. (The same's true of the gospel story itself, in a way, only there the various versions are more distinct, as we can see from the ones we have.) The way it starts suggests that there may in fact have been an "original," but it's more interesting and certainly more productive to track the various forms that the narrative subsequently took than to try to recover the putative original. It's how it circulated that matters, after all. It was what it was, at any given time and place. And how it was used etc.

Not clear what part of my quoted post Fitzmyer didn't agree with. Just the last sentence (which you address in your subsequent)?

BTW, I am not an expert on anything what so ever. Least of all textual criticism of the NT.

RE: discourse issues, I done a little reading in text-linguistics over 25 years. Very little by comparison to professional academic linguists.

Fitzmyer (AB), C.K. Barrett (ICC) and many others consider the study of Codex Bezae not optional if someone is undertaking an exegetical project in the Acts of the Apostles. This is the #1 most complicated book in the NT canon for textual criticism and Codex Bezae is the star of the show. In other words this is the "mother of all" text critical problems in the NT, the Western Text of Acts.

Clarification: I am not advocating the western text in the way Robinson-Pierpont advocate the Byzantine text. I just study the textual witnesses which have semantically significant variants. I read NA27, SBLGNT, Robinson-Pierpont, what ever I can get my hands on. This Bezae project has nothing to do with advocacy. I am also preparing for a project (for someone else) which entails translating variants. Bezae is something I started on 15 years ago and gave up. This time I will finish it.

RE: μεγως

don't know, kind of looks like an an adverb related to μέγας.

RE: παραδίδωμι in Acts 15:4 I have relegated it to footnote which calls it a "nonsense" reading about which there is some minor disagreement in the world of Bezae scholarship. I don't have access to Blass or any of the older advocates of Bezae and the Western Text. I couldn't read Blass if I had him since I don't read German.

I looked in everything I had on hand for an explanation of what difference it makes if χριστός is anarthrous. The syntax metalanguage doesn't help here. There appear to be several ways to translate B-03. So contrasting B-03 with D-05 in a translation becomes messy.

B-03 Reading ESV “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”Fitzmyer (AB, p591) "This Jesus, whom I am proclaiming to you, is the Messiah!!"Barrett (ICC, notes vl.2 p811) "This man is the Messiah, namely Jesus, whom I am now proclaiming to you."F.F. Bruce (Acts 1988, p322) "This is the Messiah—this Jesus, whom I proclaim to you."Rius-Camps and Read-Heimerdinger (Message Bezae: vl.3, p307): "The Christ is this man, Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you."

D-05

J. M. WILSON, D.D (1923) "this is Christ, Jesus whom, said he, I proclaim unto you"Rius-Camps and Read-Heimerdinger (Message Bezae: vl.3, p307): "This is the Christ, Jesus, the one whom I proclaim to you." Johannes Greber (1937[1]) "This Jesus of who I am preaching to you," he concluded, "is the Messiah."

Western Text: Fitzmyer "This is Jesus, whom I am proclaiming to you" Note: Fitzmeyer (AB 592, WT notes) claims the western text omits ὁ χριστός which I could find no evidence to support.

MY QUESTION:What should we do in the translation of the Bezae reading to demonstrate the impact on the syntax of removing both articles: from ὁ χριστός, ὁ Ἰησοῦς? Keep in mind the contrast would be established against the rendering of the ESV “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”

[1] In the introduction, quoted below' to the English translation of Johannes Greber's German NT) (1937) he claims to have used Codex Bezae as his primary source. However the English translation in Acts 17:3b conforms to the other English versions that render ὁ χριστός, ὁ Ἰησοῦς from B-03-Vaticanus. I haven't read the entire introduction. Quoting him is in no way to be construed as lending any authority to his translation. He just happens to have been one of the few who claim to have translated Codex Bezae.

This led me to a close study of the manuscripts of the New Testament. I foundthat the text of Codex D (Codex Bezae Cantabrigensis), which unfortunatelyhas several gaps, most nearly approaches the truth. It was consequently the onethat I used as the hasis for my translation.

I find this statement mildly absurd. Codex Bezae is a major representative of the Western Text which demonstrates the most undisciplined sort of textual revision. A text in which both errors and intentional rewriting abound. I have about 6 chapters left and will be glad to part company with Codex Bezae once I complete a first draft.

Resisting the suggestion that we change the word order (conjectural emendation) my provisional translation reads the dative τη διδαχη as a qualifier telling us the means or instrument operating in the winning over god-fearers , greeks and wives of shakers and movers.

Bezae Acts 17:4 And some of them were persuaded [and through their teaching many of the god-fearers joined Paul and Silas with a large number of Greeks and not a few of the wives of leading men.]

I am assuming that τινες ἐξ αὐτῶν refers to Jews, the smaller group of converts. Some English translators make this inference explicit in their translation.

BEZAE omits τε and Rius-Camps and Read-Heimerdinger ignore it in their translation. This is noteworthy since they make every possible effort to find differences between Codex Bezae and Codex Vaticanus.

I note that virtually no English version from Tyndale on makes τε visible in Acts 17:10. Three exceptions are Jay P. Green, Young's Literal which render τόν τε Παῦλον καὶ τὸν Σιλᾶν "both Paul and Silas." and most recently the Lexham English Bible which reads:

10 Now the brothers sent away both Paul and Silas at once, during the night, to Berea.

I am tempted to put {…} around "Paul and Silas" which indicates that this more accurately represents Bezae than the Alexandrian text. And I being pedantic? Perhaps Jay P. Green, Young and Lexham are just plain wrong. There has to be a reason why the vast majority of English versions ignore this.

I have decided to go with the most difficult reading[1] ο δε, taking the article as belonging to the participle προσδεομενος. My question is about a negative particle ουκ used with a compound sentence joined by δε. Any reason why ουκ cannot negate both halves of a compound sentence? I know this could be a simple error of hearing or reading but I am choosing to treat it as the the most difficult reading. I don't think the syntax is impossible but i am open to correction on this and would like to hear about it.

Translation (rough draft):

24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples made by man 25 [and need to be served by human hands], {since} [this God] gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 [...]1 He made from one [blood] every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,

[1] Keep in mind I am not establishing the "original text" here, I am simply reading and translating Bezae. When I accept a reading, I just make a judgment that it was intentional. I am not prone to accept corrections found in a later hand since they almost always move the in the direction of the Alexandrian Text.

You'd need more than a "tolerant" approach to syntax for this. With ο δε it can only mean is "… he doesn't live in manmade temples. But he is served by human hands, in need, …." Quite impossible to take ο with προσδεομενος with the main verb θεραπευεται intervening. It's an obvious error for ουδε. Can't be anything else.

More interesting is what follows, that οτι ουτος ο δους. I expect that's just a garbling too (oti for tinos, unless simply for ti [unattested?], outos for autos, o dous for didous), but it does fact give sense of a kind: "because he, the one who gave everyone life and breath and everything, made …" (NB no te after epoihsen.) At least it's grammatical – even if by accident.

Things like this give the impression of a mindless copyist confronted with a difficult-to-read or damaged exemplar. But I know from other passages you've quoted that there are other things that suggest actual rewriting, a phenomenon found in other non-classical narrative texts. Was that at an earlier stage, perhaps? I haven't made a comparison with other so-called Western MSS, nor with others, and I don't know what scholars say. This is not my field, as I've said before.

You speak of cases of "nearly impossible syntax in the GNT." In Acts, you mean? I'd be interested in examples.

Incidentally, I’m assuming your chunking of the text (a very instructive thing to do with any Greek) is yours, not the manuscript's. Extremely interesting if not.

mwh wrote:You'd need more than a "tolerant" approach to syntax for this. With ο δε it can only mean is "… he doesn't live in manmade temples. But he is served by human hands, in need, …." Quite impossible to take ο with προσδεομενος with the main verb θεραπευεται intervening. It's an obvious error for ουδε. Can't be anything else.

Michael,

That was what I suspected, looking at Smyth yesterday i didn't see any discussion of OU/OUK with a compound sentence and I couldn't recall every seeing this. Greek always repeats the negative in some form. On the article with a participle with a finite verb in middle I will look for an example, I am almost certain that happens. But it doesn't matter for this case since every ACTS resource I have on hand agrees that this is an error in copying OUDE.

C. S. Bartholomew wrote: On the article with a participle with a finite verb in middle I will look for an example, I am almost certain that happens.

I rephrased the question and took it to the other place where I knew there was some people who had studied discontinuous syntax:

What if we make the question more general. Is it possible for a noun phrase to interrupted by the finite verb, where the noun phrase is an argument for that verb? In other words, the noun phrase is either a subject or object of the finite verb and the constituents that make up the noun phrase are located both before and after the finite verb.

The answer to your "more general" reformulation is yes, there are millions of examples.

But art.+pple split either side of the main verb, I say again, no. You can have any amount of stuff between art.+pple if it's governed by the pple, but the main verb can't be sandwiched within it, and that goes double for NT Greek. Read as much as you like on discontinuous syntax and hyperbaton.

Looking at the scenario in the social historical cultural context I would assume that αισχυνης refers to indignation in response to the insult delivered to the local goddess Αρτεμις Εφεσιων by Paul's preaching. How to say this in the style of the ESV is not immediately forthcoming. indignation is not a gloss for αισχυνης in the english versions I have looked at.

Johannes Greber (1937): rendered from Greber's German Translation of Bezae so the English is not necessarily the product of the man who's name it carries.

29 Very soon it was rumoredall over the city that a great indignity had been done to Artemis,and the people with one accord rushed into the theatre, draggingwith them the Macedonians Gaius and Aristarchus, who were Paul'stravelling-companions.

The easy part is the moment of adverb σημερον forward and removal of περὶ τῆς before the adverb. Canon Wilson's translation reflects this movement whereas J. Greber's does not. In fact at this point Greber's English version is a rendering of anything but Bezae.

The difficult part, the part which all the technical commentaries address but do not solve is the syntax of the Alexandrian Text with special attention to [οὐ]. At this point our English versions of Bezae don't appear much different than the English versions of the Alexandrian Text. I suspect the reason for this is the the Alexandrian Text versions do not follow the the Alexandrian Text. The pretend the second οὐ isn't there. I spent hours today pouring over Richard Pervo (Acts Hermmenia), C. K. Barrett (Acts ICC), Parsons-Culy (Acts Baylor), D. Bock (Acts Baker), F.F. Bruce (Acts 1988), H. Alford, H. A. W. Meyer, what ever else was on hand. Several recently published works cited Barrett's "solution" to the problem but they didn't seem to agree on what Barrett was suggesting we should do here. Barrett's paraphrase on page 839-840 is not all that helpful since it is not particularly obvious what he intends to represent with the paraphrase. It doesn't look like he is addressing the textual variants. Don't have the time now to transcribe it.

Canon J. M. WILSON 1923

For indeed we are in danger this day to be accused of riot, there being no cause for which we shall be able to give an account of this concourse. And when he had thus spoken he dismissed the assembly.

Bezae J. Greber 1937 English Version of a German Translation

We are in danger of being charged with riotingbecause of to-day's happenings, for there are no grounds on whichwe can justify this disorderly gathering." With these words he dismissedthe assembly.